


Now For Plan B

by cjmarlowe



Series: Friendly Competition [4]
Category: Diving RPF
Genre: Bondage, M/M, Sensation Play, kink bingo, other side of the pond, subspace/headspace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-30
Updated: 2012-12-30
Packaged: 2017-11-23 01:45:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/616694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cjmarlowe/pseuds/cjmarlowe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So there's a part of Riley that knows what happened between them was the result of circumstance and proximity and was never meant to be more than what it was. But there's another part that says something so good can't be meant to just end like that. That's the part that perks up when he gets an unexpected text from Tom telling him that he's going to be in New York after Christmas and that can't be too far from Arizona, right? He's pretty sure Tom isn't looking for a geography lesson, so he just books a flight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Now For Plan B

It's going to be a long time before they're in competition together again. Riley's known this all along, has had the next year of his life mapped out in his head for a while now, surgery and all, but he doesn't really let himself think about it till he's back at school. It's easier to just figure that they'll run into one another again soon and not deal with the reality that they live on different continents until he doesn't have anything to distract him from that anymore.

So there's a part of him that knows what happened between them was the result of circumstance and proximity and was never meant to be more than what it was. But there's another part that says something _so good_ can't be meant to just end like that. That's the part that perks up when he gets an unexpected text from Tom telling him that he's going to be in New York after Christmas and that can't be too far from Arizona, right?

He's pretty sure Tom isn't looking for a geography lesson, so he just books a flight.

They're playing the Longhorns game behind the bar in the hotel restaurant—Tom's hotel, because Riley is just flying in and out pretty much with just the clothes on his back—and Riley is vaguely paying attention as Tom looks at the menu.

"Is that your team?" he asks, looking up for a moment.

"Nah, the Sun Devils won already this afternoon," says Tom. "This is just, you know, on."

"Who do you think's going to win?"

Riley shrugs, but he follows college football just enough to have an opinion. "Oregon State," he says after a moment, "but it'll probably be close."

"Who are the playing?"

"Uh, Texas," says Riley. "Texas Longhorns."

Tom nods like he's thinking about that. "I'll bet on them," he says.

"You'll—" starts Riley, thrown off guard, but he catches on pretty quick. "What do I get if I win?"

"You know what you get if you win."

It's not the same, because Riley doesn't have control over his own fate in this scenario, but it's not that different either. Because no matter what happens, they both win. And if this is what they need to do so that tonight ends up in Tom's hotel room, Riley is all for that.

"Okay," he says, as if it weren't already a foregone conclusion. "You're on."

It's well into the game by the time they finally leave the restaurant, Riley with a couple of drinks under his belt but nothing that he's really feeling. He doesn't really need it to put a smile on his face tonight, to feel tight and happy and just a little bit nervous. A lot is riding on the outcome of that game, and it's not like the Olympics, where Riley wanted to win for its own sake. Tonight he's not sure he knows who he actually hopes wins. 

Not that he's going to tell Tom that.

"Oregon State was looking good when we left," he says as they ride up to Tom's room.

"Yeah?" says Tom. "We'll see about that. It's not over until it's over, as they say."

He turns the television on as soon as they enter the room, no lights, just the glow of the screen on a crisply made bed at least twice the size of the one they'd once shared in London. Riley kicks his shoes off, stretches out on the bed and isn't surprised when Tom stretches out with him, hand loosely on Riley's thigh but not starting anything till they know.

"Weird to have nothing pressing, eh?" says Riley "The only clock I'm watching is the last few minutes of the fourth quarter."

"I think I'll be able to find something to do with the extra time," says Tom. "I've got a lot of plans."

"You know you're not actually playing this game, right?" says Riley. "You know you can't just _will_ them to win."

"Prove it," says Tom.

A few minutes on the clock is a _lot_ of game time, and much as Riley is enjoying Tom's company, neither of them is particularly good at sitting still that long. Tom starts moving restlessly on the bed and Riley gets up, starts stalking around the hotel room.

"If we were in my apartment, I'd have something to tie someone up with," he says, looking through closets and bathroom shelves.

"I'm not sure how I'm meant to feel about that," says Tom. "Are you saying you have a collection?"

"I don't mean they're designed for it," says Riley, "but belts, ties, socks, bungee cords..."

"Bungee cords?"

"I move a lot," he says. "A guy needs to tie things down."

"Oh yeah?" says Tom. "What kind of things?"

"All kinds of things," says Riley, coming up with the belt from a bathrobe and a pair of shoelaces. It feels like old times. Now he just needs an opportunity to use them.

Which is of course when his team loses. Damn it, even when Tom's not actually competing, he wins.

"I'll be having that," says Tom, propelling himself off the bed and pulling the terrycloth belt from Riley's hands.

Rather than protest, Riley just holds his wrists together in front of himself and offers them to Tom. If he's going to lose, he's at least going to do it on his own terms, with his chin up.

"Do you ever feel like, no matter how far we take it, it should go just a _little bit further_?" says Tom, and Riley gets goosebumps, feels a delicious shiver go through him.

"Just a little bit further," he echoes him, and he's not sure whether he wants to put the emphasis on 'little bit' or on 'further'.

"You can say no," says Tom, but Riley isn't saying no. He's not even asking too many questions. "Whenever you need to."

"We've been here before," he says.

"We've started here before," says Tom, "but I don't think we've ever been where I'm taking you tonight."

Riley is still holding his wrists out and Tom wraps a hand around them, stretching it to its limit. "Careful," he murmurs, "I'm still healing," but he doesn't think Tom is planning on putting any stress on his _hands_ , and it's just one more thing that's going to keep Riley still. "On the bed?"

"On the bed," says Tom, and Riley stretches out in his back again, arms above his head. Tom proceeds to start pulling his clothes off, piece by piece, slowly. Riley is good at making his body pliable, letting it bend any which way it needs to, and the couple of drinks aren't hurting either. He knows what's coming might be pretty intense, but he's still relaxed.

When he's naked—and Tom is not, but he hopes that will change quickly—he lets Tom draw his hands up, tie them loosely to the headboard that's actually useful for that purpose, unlike the ones they'd been dealing with the last time they'd been in this position.

"Close your eyes," says Tom. "Don't open them again until I tell you to."

"What if I smell smoke? Can I open my eyes then?"

"You should probably try not to talk again until I tell you to either," says Tom, and just as Riley is going to add one last smartass comment Tom kisses him and sinks his teeth into Riley's lower lip and he doesn't feel so much like talking anymore. "Eyes closed. Mouth...however you want it."

Riley leaves his lips parted, licks his lower lip when Tom finally presses his mouth to Riley's skin. The touch is so fleeting, so gentle, that for a moment he's not even sure it's intentional. Then Tom's fingertips brush against him similarly, lower on his torso, and he knows it is. He remembers these light touches, remembers what follows them, and goosebumps involuntarily rise all the way down his arms.

"That's a good start," says Tom, and kisses them away, which takes a very long time because every kiss just brings more to rise.

He's gentle for a long time, with fingertips and lips and Riley thinks that's maybe a feather again but he doesn't open his eyes to see. Nothing is stopping him except the overwhelming belief that this will be better if he doesn't, and that conviction is overriding his usual impulses. He wants to look, to see, to _know_ , but more than that he wants to give himself in to this.

When it's finally not gentle, when Tom finally pinches one nipple and bites the other, the shock of arousal overwhelms him for a moment.

"I asked you a question once," says Tom, resting his cheek against Riley's stomach. "I asked you if you could come from just this. And you told me you could, if we had long enough." Riley doesn't have to think about it to know where this is going. "Tonight we have long enough."

"I don't know if I can—" he starts, taking that to be an invitation to speak, but as soon as he says that he knows he wants to find out. Even if it drives him crazy. Maybe especially then, because he's never really taken that crazy, out of control feeling as far as it can go. He's pretty laid back, and he's pretty impulsive, but he's also disciplined. And letting Tom take him there is going to take both of those sides of him.

"You can," says Tom, with that crazy confidence that he applies to everything he does. Riley just isn't sure if that confidence is in him, or in Tom's own abilities to make it happen. "You will."

Riley takes a deep breath, relaxes back into the bed, and lets Tom take over completely. Because he trusts him. He has to.

"I've been thinking about it," says Tom, surprising him by talking, "and I think I'd like to tie you up properly. Nothing makeshift. With real ropes and real knots, bending you into place. Would you like that?" Despite the question, Riley knows this isn't an invitation to talk; his quickening breath is probably all the answer Tom needs. "One day we're going to do all of this properly."

Tom rakes his nails down Riley's chest and licks the crease between his torso and his leg, and Riley's head buzzes with the pleasure-pain hard-soft of it. He wants to tell him to keep doing that, but he doesn't have to tell Tom anything. Tom is already doing exactly what he wants to do, and Riley should stop thinking about it, should breathe deep and let go. Let go.

It's too much, it's all just too much, every sensation piling on top of the last. Caresses and slaps, licks and pinches, kisses and bites. One after the other and together and never stopping, never letting up for longer than it takes Riley to anticipate the next one. He saw a simulation once of a tsunami that was just like this, a bunch of tiny ripples running into one another until you suddenly have this gigantic, unstoppable wave. And when the waves crashes into him he doesn't resist it, he rides it, he takes off far, far beyond the ripples.

He thinks he hears his name, or something like it, and makes a noise or a gesture of acknowledgement, but it's an intrusion and he's glad when it doesn't come again. He's still riding the wave, high above himself, and he feels like it's going to come crashing on the shore any moment. Any moment now.

When he comes, and he does come without anyone ever touching his dick, it's both a surprise and also an overwhelming inevitability. Riley can't feel anything else, doesn't even think he's aware of anything else but the sensation of it, bursting out and then settling over him like stardust. That's what he thinks, what he sees. Stardust.

After that he becomes more aware of his surroundings, the bed, the room, Tom lying beside him.

Riley finally remembers to breathe again, shallowly at first, his head swimming now more from aftershocks and lack of oxygen than overload of sensation. His skin is still so sensitive that when Tom brushes against him he jerks reflexively.

"All right?" says Tom, and Riley takes too long to answer. "Riley?"

"Yeah," he forces out, because if Tom starts to actually worry that takes a whole lot of the fun out of it. "I...need a minute."

Tom brushes a kiss over his shoulder, a surprisingly gentle and tender moment, then gets up off the bed to give Riley his privacy. It feels weird to need it, to be this exposed, but if there's anyone he's safe with in this state it's Tom, and so he tries to get over himself. He has no idea if Tom came, though he assumes he did. He has no idea if Tom even took his clothes off.

When Tom comes back from the bathroom, freshened up and with a wet washcloth in hand, Riley is stretched out in his back again, scratching his shoulder and blinking up at the ceiling. He feels fully present again, and so exhausted he can barely keep his eyes open.

"All right?" says Tom again and Riley nods, so Tom crawls back up on the bed and drops the cloth on his stomach. "When do you fly back?"

"In the morning," says Riley, "so you have to let me crash here or I'm out on the streets."

"Someone didn't plan ahead," says Tom, but Riley thinks it was an excellent plan. "Guess I'll have to keep you." 

"I don't take up much room," murmurs Riley, fast losing his grip on consciousness. 

"And we can share a shower in the morning," says Tom, or at least Riley thinks he does, but forming a half dozen words was all the energy he has left. He falls asleep with the weight of Tom's arm over his chest, and a profound satisfaction that he _didn't_ win this time.

And a confidence that there _will_ be a next time. There will always be another chance.


End file.
